[NYPost] There isn't much that Turkey's president can do these days to further debase his reputation in the West. Recep Tayyip Erdogan has crushed peaceful protests at home and abroad, closed newspapers, threatened American soldiers and collectively scapegoated Kurds. But over the weekend, Erdogan managed to go even lower.
At a rally at Kahramanmaras, the Turkish leader brought a trembling 6-year-old girl on stage dressed in military garb and told her she would be honored if she died as a martyr. He sounded like a terrorist. We expect this kind of child abuse from the fanatics in Hamas or Hezbollah. Erdogan though is the leader of an important NATO ally.
Turkey is beginning to resemble Pakistan, a perpetually failing state whose military leadership has tolerated and advanced a vision of political Islam deeply hostile to US and Western interests.
To be sure, Turkey is not quite there yet. There is still a majority of Turks who want to eventually join the European Union. The Turkish economy is stronger than Pakistan's, and its banks are more trusted.
And unlike in Pakistan, the driving force to further Islamize society has come from Erdogan, an elected leader, not the military.